October 21, 2004 • Volume 13 Number 4

BC Law Dean Garvey Wins Alpha Sigma Nu Honor

A casebook on religious liberty co-authored by Law School Dean John H. Garvey has won an Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit Book Award.

Religion and the Constitution (Aspen Publishers, 2002), co-authored by then-University of Utah Professor of Law Michael W. McConnell, now a federal judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, and Professor Thomas C. Berg of the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, was one of four books honored in the category of professional studies.

The book prizes honoring outstanding scholarly publishing achievement by Jesuit college faculty and administrators are given each year by the national Jesuit honor society Alpha Sigma Nu in a specific discipline: humanities, sciences, or professional studies, encompassing fields from architecture to law. This year's prizes were given in the latter category.

The casebook co-authored by Garvey emphasizes the interrelatedness of the "free exercise of religion" and the "non-establishment of religion" clauses of the United States Constitution in three areas where government interacts with religion: the regulation of religious activity, the funding of religious activity, and the treatment of religion in government's culture-shaping activities such as public schools. Relevant Supreme Court cases are presented along with explanatory notes.

"Religion and the Constitution is without doubt the best and most important book available today for teaching the law of religious liberty to students," said Douglas Laycock, the Associate Dean for Research and Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law for the University of Texas. "It is both broad and deep, thorough, insightful, balanced, and well written - a pleasure to teach."

Last year, two BC faculty members were Alpha Sigma Nu honorees: Prof. Paul Davidovits (Chemistry), who won first place in the Natural Sciences category and Prof. Peter Clote (Biology), co-author of a book that took top honors in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Other previous BC winners include Prof. Patrick Byrne (Philosophy), Prof. Sister Callista Roy, CSJ (CSON), Prof. Diane Vaughan (Sociology), Prof. Ellen Winner (Psychology) Prof. Aviam Soifer (Law) and Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art Jonathan Bloom.